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Authors: Alexander McGregor
Tags: General, True Crime
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behind the towering walls would be bound to act like animals if that was how they thought they were being treated.
5
BILL THE RIPPER
A chill wind swept through Dundee Harbour that late January morning in 1889 when the couple from London hurried down the gangway of the steamer Cambria . Neither had been in the city before and they gazed for a few moments at the vast hill dominating the northern skyline – which they would later learn was called the Law – before pulling their collars up and quickly moving on to collect their luggage.
Few of the others going about their business on the dockside that day paid them much attention, except to show a little surprise at how skilfully the diminutive 5-foot 3-inch male handled the large packing box that was discharged along with the rest of their baggage. William Henry Bury wasn’t just short of stature, but slightly built and sometimes a shade unsteady on his feet, though that had more to do with the amount of ale he normally consumed than any infirmity. For most of his twenty-nine years he had lived in his native Midlands and the woman who accompanied him was his wife Ellen, four years his senior, whom he had married only nine months before.
Bizarrely, they had met in Kate Spooner’s brothel in London where Ellen worked as a skivvy and where Bury had become a frequent visitor after moving south to live in the capital’s East End the previous November.
Their courtship had been brief – a month – before their Easter Monday wedding and it was difficult to understand how Bury had managed to sweep Ellen, slim and delicately featured, so completely off her feet. He was said by those who knew him to be restless and quarrelsome, fond of drink and whores and without any kind of obvious future. His father, a fishmonger, had died when Bury was only six months old and a short time later his mother was admitted to a lunatic asylum. A prosperous woman in Wolverhampton took over the family of three orphans but, despite being educated above his class, Bury became a drifter soon after entering his teens. He had some training as a horse butcher and had worked in a locksmith’s, but these occupations required a discipline he didn’t have and after his move to the East End he eked out a scanty living as a sawdust- and sand-merchant. Most of his customers were publicans and he also tended to quickly become one of theirs.
It was much easier to understand why Bury was attracted to Ellen. She had inherited £300 in shares from an aunt – the equivalent of three years’ pay for factory workers – and more than one customer at Kate Spooner’s had made overtures in her direction. Unaccountably, she had chosen the small, bearded man who had seemed incapable of offering her any kind of future. It was a decision she probably came quickly to regret. Less than a week after the wedding, their first landlady in Bow hurried to their bedroom because of the amount of noise. She walked in to find Bury straddling his wife with the knife he always kept under his pillow in his hand and Ellen shouting that he was in the act of killing her. Another acquaintance of the unlikely couple twice witnessed the petite newly-wed being assaulted by her husband. On the first occasion, Bury punched her full in the face in a pub in Whitechapel. During the next attack, in the street, Ellen was knocked to the ground after suffering a heavy blow to the mouth. The incident ended only when a man stepped in to hold the drunken Bury back.
When he wasn’t ill-treating his new wife, the under-sized, under-achieving Bury was rapidly devouring the £300 legacy, first with the purchase of a pony and cart for his sawdust business and later on drink and prostitutes. By the time they arrived in Dundee, little remained. Certainly, there wasn’t enough left to fund the purchase of a house or even the rent of fully furnished apartments in the city and when they alighted from the Cambria that winter morning, they travelled only a few
5
BILL THE RIPPER
A chill wind swept through Dundee Harbour that late January morning in 1889 when the couple from London hurried down the gangway of the steamer Cambria . Neither had been in the city before and they gazed for a few moments at the vast hill dominating the northern skyline – which they would later learn was called the Law – before pulling their collars up and quickly moving on to collect their luggage.
Few of the others going about their business on the dockside that day paid them much attention, except to show a little surprise at how skilfully the diminutive 5-foot 3-inch male handled the large packing box that was discharged along with the rest of their baggage. William Henry Bury wasn’t just short of stature, but slightly built and sometimes a shade unsteady on his feet, though that had more to do with the amount of ale he normally consumed than any infirmity. For most of his twenty-nine years he had lived in his native Midlands and the woman who accompanied him was his wife Ellen, four years his senior, whom he had married only nine months before.
Bizarrely, they had met in Kate Spooner’s brothel in London where Ellen worked as a skivvy and where Bury had become a frequent visitor after moving south to live in the capital’s East End the previous November.
Their courtship had been brief – a month – before their Easter Monday wedding and it was difficult to understand how Bury had managed to sweep Ellen, slim and delicately featured, so completely off her feet. He was said by those who knew him to be restless and quarrelsome, fond of drink and whores and without any kind of obvious future. His father, a fishmonger, had died when Bury was only six months old and a short time later his mother was admitted to a lunatic asylum. A prosperous woman in Wolverhampton took over the family of three orphans but, despite being educated above his class, Bury became a drifter soon after entering his teens. He had some training as a horse butcher and had worked in a locksmith’s, but these occupations required a discipline he didn’t have and after his move to the East End he eked out a scanty living as a sawdust- and sand-merchant. Most of his customers were publicans and he also tended to quickly become one of theirs.
It was much easier to understand why Bury was attracted to Ellen. She had inherited £300 in shares from an aunt – the equivalent of three years’ pay for factory workers – and more than one customer at Kate Spooner’s had made overtures in her direction. Unaccountably, she had chosen the small, bearded man who had seemed incapable of offering her any kind of future. It was a decision she probably came quickly to regret. Less than a week after the wedding, their first landlady in Bow hurried to their bedroom because of the amount of noise. She walked in to find Bury straddling his wife with the knife he always kept under his pillow in his hand and Ellen shouting that he was in the act of killing her. Another acquaintance of the unlikely couple twice witnessed the petite newly-wed being assaulted by her husband. On the first occasion, Bury punched her full in the face in a pub in Whitechapel. During the next attack, in the street, Ellen was knocked to the ground after suffering a heavy blow to the mouth. The incident ended only when a man stepped in to hold the drunken Bury back.
When he wasn’t ill-treating his new wife, the under-sized, under-achieving Bury was rapidly devouring the £300 legacy, first with the purchase of a pony and cart for his sawdust business and later on drink and prostitutes. By the time they arrived in Dundee, little remained. Certainly, there wasn’t enough left to fund the purchase of a house or even the rent of fully furnished apartments in the city and when they alighted from the Cambria that winter morning, they travelled only a few
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